There was a long silence at the scene.
No one spoke.
Amelia Brand spoke first:
"What's wrong? Why do you all look so unhappy? Whoever they are, as long as they share the same goals as us, they can be our friends, right?"
"Are you still clinging to outdated thinking from over a decade ago? Do you think not enough people have died yet?"
Amelia Brand is only in her early thirties, a member of a generation that grew up amidst global unrest, and she is already fed up with everything that has happened before.
Those in their forties and fifties looked at each other, remaining silent for a long time.
Finally, Professor Brand spoke up, " Amelia is right, things are different now. They should become our friends."
" Jody, go check on how they're doing."
"Yes, Professor." Jody responded and left the silent crowd.
Only then did someone shrug and say to Amelia Brand, "Perhaps you're right, Doctor, they can indeed be our friends, but we might be happier if that friend were someone else..."
Amelia glanced at the middle-aged man who had spoken. "Those friends you were hoping for, weren't they all wiped out by your plundering twenty years ago?"
"When I grew up, I heard that you would rather drop incendiary bombs on granaries than watch the grain be taken away. At your most insane, you even tried to drop nuclear bombs to wipe out the farmers on the plains and then seize the land for yourselves?"
"Hmm... Doctor, you may have heard these false rumors from unofficial sources. There is no record of us ever doing or planning to do such a thing."
Amelia gave a cold sneer, "There's currently no record of the Apollo moon landing being a real historical event; textbooks even openly declare it fake, don't they?"
Upon hearing this, the man who had just spoken immediately fell silent and shut his mouth.
Amelia stopped wasting her time and turned her attention to Jody.
The head of the space system is analyzing information collected in real time by the satellite network with others.
Professor Brand stood beside him, watching the various parameters transmitted back to him on the screen:
"How's it going? Did their launch go smoothly?"
"The situation doesn't seem too good, sir," Jody said.
"Their rockets are very fast and have great thrust; in that respect alone, their rocket technology is quite advanced."
Jody pulled up the photos transmitted back by the satellite.
In the atmosphere, a dazzling point of light can be clearly seen shooting into space, leaving a long trail of light, like a meteor flying backwards from the ground.
"Isn't that a good thing?" Professor Brand continued to ask, in his view, a rocket with high thrust and speed was definitely a good thing.
"Ahem," Jody coughed twice, "This was originally a good thing, but as you know, since the emergence of wormholes, they have slowly begun to have a universal impact on the entire universe within the Solar System."
"For example, the gravitational pull of the Earth's upper atmosphere becomes distorted, and spacecraft launches must adapt to this sudden change in gravity."
"More than a decade ago, an accident occurred during training for Lazarus missions, where the pilot operating the spacecraft crashed due to a sudden change in gravity and narrowly escaped death."
"These rockets are going too fast right now, so fast that they might not be able to successfully enter orbit, even if they're aiming for the wormhole's orbit..." xS12
Upon hearing this, Professor Brand and the others became somewhat nervous.
Overall, everyone present hoped the rocket would launch successfully, so they would at least have a backup partner.
Professor Brand especially hoped for this.
He kept his eyes glued to the parameters on the screen, occasionally asking Jody about the latest changes.
The only problem is that the news keeps coming too fast, too fast...
They're about to lose control!
Suddenly, Jody said this.
Brand's hand clenched tightly.
Jody manipulated the screen, displaying several orbits from Earth to the wormhole, but the rocket marked with a red dot was not on any of these orbits.
"The distortion of gravity caused the rocket's trajectory to become erratic, and they missed their chance to travel to the wormhole."
Jody said:
"If their payload has its own propulsion, then perhaps they can make orbital corrections, at the cost of a reduced spacecraft lifespan. If not, then this thing will probably only be a floating mascot in space..."
Dust settles
Certainly.
Professor Brand sighed, and his hand, which had been clenched tightly, involuntarily loosened.
Amelia Brand looked disappointed. The middle-aged man she had just spoken to shrugged. "Looks like they're not ready to be friends with us yet."
Amelia glanced at him as usual, but had no mood to say anything more.
domestic.
Space launch site.
The fact that the rocket launch trajectory had deviated was known here even earlier than on the other side of the ocean.
Zhou Kun stared in disbelief at the spacecraft's flight trajectory displayed on the screen, completely unprepared for this outcome.
All stages of the rocket were functioning normally, and separation went smoothly, so why did its trajectory deviate?
They clearly mentioned the gravitational anomaly before launch!
Zhou Kun looked in astonishment at the experts beside him, whose origins he didn't recognize, only to see that their faces showed none of the expression one would expect from a launch failure; instead, they were discussing it as if it were perfectly normal.
"As expected, it missed."
"It's bound to go astray; it'd be strange if it didn't."
"..."
In an instant, Zhou Kun felt a surge of anger rising within him, and he almost rushed forward to teach these experts, who didn't understand the seriousness of the matter and had no sense of responsibility, a lesson they deserved. At the very least... at the very least, he wanted to grab them by the collar and give them a good scolding!
But he had barely taken a step when he saw another young man walk up to them, whispering something, and then the group started nodding in agreement.
Later on, even Yuan Heguang walked over.
And judging from their expressions, they seemed to be getting more and more relaxed as they talked...
It seems they didn't take the orbital deviation to heart either?
Zhou Kun felt increasingly strange.
They worked so hard, expending so much manpower and resources to send the rocket and payload into space, so why does it seem like he's the only one concerned about the orbital deviation?
In fact, he was right.
He was indeed the only one at the scene who cared about this.
Because the aerospace team had already told Zhang Tianyuan before the launch that this emergency launch could only guarantee that the rocket would get into space, and whether the payload could be successfully sent into orbit depended on fate.
Now it seems clear that there wasn't much of a chance for them to be together.
In less than two weeks, the team on site will have to restart a space base, adapt the rocket and launch site, and install supporting equipment...
With so many things to deal with, where would they find the energy to cope with the gravitational distortion of the upper atmosphere?
That would require modifications to the rocket itself.
Such a task could not be completed in half a month, not even with Wandering Spacetime technology.
With this mindset in mind, the result doesn't seem surprising to anyone now.
Moreover, Zhang Tianyuan had already prepared a response.
The spacecraft carried on this rocket was not a conventional probe, but a special spacecraft.
What makes it special is that it is sturdy, durable, reliable, has several reusable high-thrust jet engines, and stores a large amount of fuel.
Inside the ship, there is a small space for human movement, where a fuel inlet is located.
"Next, we will remotely activate the thrusters to maneuver the spaceship to change course. Once it successfully enters the wormhole orbit, its internal fuel will be almost exhausted."
An expert is explaining to Yuan Heguang.
Zhang Tianyuan said at the opportune moment, "Once the fuel runs out, I will open Spacetime Tunnel leading to the interior of the spaceship. We just need to go through the tunnel to refuel the spaceship. As long as there are no problems with heat dissipation, the spaceship can maintain a full fuel level and accelerate in space..."
This was the first time Yuan Heguang had heard of such a thing. He was stunned for a moment, "Is this even possible?"
Zhang Tianyuan laughed and said, "Of course, we've encountered similar situations many times before."
The Precursors Pacific Rim Spacetime program previously failed because of this.
The Gipsy Danger, located by the system, entered their planet and was destroyed, naturally giving the system its coordinates.
The same applies to the spacecraft currently in space.
The Spacetime Tunnel doesn't connect to the universe, but rather to the space inside the spaceship.
"Besides allowing us to adjust the spacecraft's trajectory at any time, this also greatly increases the spacecraft's speed."
"Under normal circumstances, traveling from Earth to a wormhole would take at least two years, and only by using Mars' gravitational slingshot effect could one arrive."
"However, with unlimited fuel, the time it takes for a spaceship to reach a wormhole can be reduced to at least six months or even less."
"Moreover, once this spaceship arrives at the wormhole, it can become our spacetime."
The beacon, connected to Spacetime Tunnel, allows us to skip the intermediate journey and directly send spacecraft to the vicinity of the wormhole, eliminating the need for launches from Earth...
The experts' words brought Yuan Heguang a pleasant surprise.
He never imagined that Spacetime Tunnel could be so flexible and versatile.
"Now, let's look forward to your good news." Yuan Heguang solemnly shook hands with each expert before the experts authorized the operator on the control panel to start the spacecraft's engines and begin adjusting its orbit...
Outside the crowd, Zhou Kun still stood there blankly.
He scratched his hair and suddenly felt superfluous.
In the silent space.
A bright light suddenly appeared, and flames shot out from the tail of a spaceship, propelling it to change course and head towards the wormhole's orbit in the boundless space.
This change naturally came under the electronic watchful eye of the satellite network.
"Their spaceship has started its engines and begun adjusting its orbit!"
Jody noticed the change immediately from the screen.
Professor Brand pulled up a chair and sat down. He took a breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Although they made some mistakes, given the current situation, there's no other choice. They are our best partner."
" Jody, coordinate this, send them our signal. We can work with them to save all of humanity."
Jody crossed her arms and nodded, saying, "I'll try to find a way, although it'll be a bit difficult."
"No matter how difficult it is, it's still easier than saving all of humanity."
Professor Brand felt he had rested enough, so he stood up and slowly walked towards a laboratory.
Amelia crossed her arms and followed.
Because this is her territory--
This is a laboratory storing " Population Bomb ".
"Dad, do you want to take a look?" Amelia was used to her father coming to check on her every now and then.
Professor Brand nodded silently.
Then Amelia skillfully grabbed a handle on the shelf next to her, turned it once, and a cylindrical steel device was pulled out of the cold storage, which contained a large number of small glass bottles.
This is part of the Population Bomb.
To put it simply, this thing is a container that stores nearly five thousand human fertilized eggs.
According to the plan, if the equations of gravity cannot be solved and gravity cannot be modified, then these fertilized eggs will become humanity's last hope. Astronauts will take them to New Star in a spaceship to incubate, and these unborn lives will live there as new humans.
This is Professor Brand's Plan B.
Plan A is to crack the equations of gravity, master gravity, and save all of humanity.
Once he started thinking about his plan, Brand became completely absorbed in his own world...
He was awakened by his daughter's voice:
"Dad? Are you alright?"
Amelia looked at him with concern.
Professor Brand smiled. "I was just thinking that if we had a partner, maybe we could bring in more fertilized eggs."
Amelia frowned. "Our goal is to save all of humanity. Plan B is just a last resort, isn't it?"
"Uh..." Professor Brand paused for a moment, then said, "You're right, the equations of gravity can definitely be solved."
"I'm tired today, I'm going home now."
After saying that, Professor Brand turned around.
Amelia said goodbye to her father, then turned and put the fertilized egg back.
Unbeknownst to her, her elderly father's face darkened the moment he turned around.
What she didn't know was that there was actually no Plan A at all.
Her elderly father had long known that Plan A was doomed to fail.
Ten years ago, Professor Brand had already solved the equations of gravity, but the result he obtained was completely wrong; it was impossible to reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics.
From that moment on, he knew that he had been doing thirty years of useless work, and that without real data, humanity could never unlock the secrets of gravity.
The data he needed only existed inside the black hole, but black holes can even swallow light, and the inside and outside are completely isolated, so no information can come out from inside.
It is absolutely impossible to observe the interior of a black hole from the outside...
So he was in despair.
Almost no one knew that he had long ago abandoned Plan A, abandoned the idea of saving all of humanity, and placed all his hopes on Plan B.
In order for Plan B to continue smoothly, he even went so far as to deceive everyone, making them believe that Plan A still had hope, and that humanity still had hope...
Professor Brand walked to the door, taking one last look at his busy daughter.
" Amelia, you must live well on the new planet."